Fancies and Goodnights, стр. 99
«You have no idea how bored that poor girl is,» said the Devil compassionately. «And she has only been here a few hundred years. What is that, in comparison to Eternity?»
«Very little. Very little, indeed,» said Philip.
«You see what sort of partners she gets,» continued the archfiend. «During every dance they reveal to her, and she to them, some little unpleasantness of the sort that so disquieted you.»
«But why should they be in a dance lounge?» asked Philip.
«Why not?» said the Devil with a shrug. «Have another cigarette.»
He then proposed that they should adjourn to his office, to talk matters over.
«Now, my dear Westwick,» said he, when they were comfortably ensconced in armchairs, «what shall our little arrangement be? I can, of course, annihilate all that has occurred. In that case you will find yourself back on the parapet, in the very act of jumping, just as you were when I caught you by the ankle. Shortly afterwards you will arrive in the little dance lounge you saw; whether fat or thin depends upon the caprice of the waters.»
«It is night,» said Philip. «The river flows at four miles an hour. I should probably get out to sea unobserved. Yes, I should almost certainly be one of the fat ones. They appeared to me remarkably deficient in it or S.A., if those terms are familiar to you.»
«I have heard of them,» said the Devil, with a smile. «Have a cigar.»
«No, thanks,» said Philip. «What alternative do you suggest?»
«Here is our standard contract,» said the Devil. «Do have a cigar. You see — unlimited wealth, fifty years, Helen of Troy — well, that's obsolete. Say Miss —,» and he mentioned the name of a delightful film star.
«Of course,» said Philip, «there's this little clause about possession of my soul. Is that essential?»
«Well, it's the usual thing,» said the Devil. «Better let it stand. This is where you sign.»
«Well, I don't know,» said Philip. «I don't think I'll sign.»
«What?» cried the Devil
Our hero pursed his lips.
«I don't want to influence you, my dear Westwick,» said the Devil, «but have you considered the difference between coming in tomorrow as a drowned suicide, and coming in — fifty glorious years hence, mind — as a member of the staff? Those were members of the staff you saw talking to the little brunette at the bar. Nice girl!»
«All the same,» said Philip, «I don't think I'll sign. Many thanks, though.»
«All right,» said the Devil. «Back you go, then!»
Philip was aware of a rushing sensation: he seemed to be shooting upwards like a rocket. However, he kept his presence of mind, kept his weight on his heels, and, when he got to the parapet, jumped down, but on the right side.
SPRING FEVER
There was a young sculptor named Eustace whose work was altogether too life-like for the modern taste. Consequently he was often under the necessity of dropping in upon his friends at about seven in the evening, in the hungry hope of being pressed to stay for dinner. «I carve the stone,» said he to himself, «and chisel my meals. When I am rich it will be much the same thing, only the other way round.»
He would eagerly snuff up the odours of sputtering roasts and nourishing stews that crept in from the kitchen, and, excited by the savour, he would exult in his incorruptible ideals and furiously inveigh against the abstractionists. But nature and art were combined against the unfortunate Eustace, for the stimulating vapours worked powerfully upon his salivary glands, and the moderns he most hissingly denounced were Brancusi, Lipchitz, and Brzeska.
It was usually the wives who, thus clumsily reminded of Niagara, demanded that Eustace be got rid of without delay. Numerous devices were employed to this end; one of the most humane was to give him a ticket for some show or other and bid him hurry off and get there before it started.
Thus it came about one evening that Eustace, defeated of a seven-rib roast, found himself unexpectedly watching Charlie McCarthy, whom he regarded with the humourless and critical eye of a hungry sculptor. «I don't know what all the applause is for,» said he to the man beside him. «Those jokes are not his own; it's obviously all done by ventriloquism. And considered as a work of art — well, I happen to be a sculptor myself, and I can assure you he's an all-time low.»
«All the same,» returned the stranger, «he earns I don't know how many hundred thousand bucks a year for his owner.»
«By God!» cried Eustace, standing up and brandishing his fists. «What sort of civilization is this, anyway? Here's a coarse, crude, comic-looking dummy, not fit even to be called a piece of sculpture, and earns this fellow doesn't know how many hundred thousand a year, while the most life-like work of the century is …» At this point, the ushers took him by the seat of the pants and slung him out of the auditorium.
Eustace picked himself up, and shuffled off in the direction of Brooklyn, where the old garage was situated that was at once his abode and his studio. In the near neighbourhood of this place there was a dingy little book shop, with a tray of second-hand books in the entrance. One of these bore the conspicuous title, «Practical Ventriloquism.» Eustace's eye fell upon this title, and he stopped and picked up the book and looked at it with a sneer. «Art and the Ideal,» said he, «have brought me to this pass. If that fellow's figures were correct, Ventriloquism and the Practical may get me out of it.» He glanced into the interior of the shop and saw that no one was looking at him. He at once slipped the book under his jacket, and made his way off. «I am now a thief,» said he to himself. «How does it feel to be a thief, Eustace?» And he answered, «It feels fine.»
Arrived home, he studied the book with great concentration, «This is perfectly simple,» said he. «You just take your voice and bounce it, as if it were a ball, immobilizing the jaws as you do so. I used to bounce a ball as a youngster, and my jaws have had good practice at resting immobile. Here, too, is a little picture of the larynx, with A, B, C, D—everything. I can learn to ventriloquize as well as anyone, and with a dummy that is a real work of art I shall soon be making a fortune.»
He at once dragged out all his long accumulated works, to find one suitable to set up as a rival to Charlie McCarthy. But though he had renounced his ideals something of the old artist still survived within him. «They are all marvellous,» he said, «but I can do better. I will make something so life-like that the audience will swear it's a stooge, and I shall have to invite them to step up on the platform and stick pins in it.»
He looked about for material from which to carve this masterpiece, but he had been so long on the rocks that he had no longer a piece of stone to work upon. «Never mind,» said he, «I will model him in clay, which has the advantage of being lighter and less chilly, and will yield a little to the points of the pins. This will provide an agreeable sensation for those who step up to make the test, for such people are bound to be sadistically inclined.»
Next morning he went out into the yard behind his studio, and toiled with pick and shovel until he had uncovered a bed of red clay, of a quality very noticeably superior to that which is sold in the art stores. From this he fashioned a male figure of singularly attractive appearance, with crimpy hair and a Graeco-Roman profile. He thought the face wore a slightly supercilious expression, and this he strove to modify, but in spite of his skill his efforts were unavailing. «After all,» he said, «it is a work of genius, and as such it is entitled to a slightly supercilious expression.»
In order to impart a sufficient flexibility to his creation, he jointed the limbs and neck with pieces of old bedsprings, such as are indigenous to the soil of the back yards of Brooklyn. This experiment was so successful that he broke up two or three battered alarm clocks he found, which his neighbours had thrown at the cats, and fixed up the fingers, the toes, and the eyelids. He scrabbled about in the debris, and found other springs of all shapes and sizes, which he employed to the utmost advantage, not even neglecting those details that were least likely to be seen by the audience. In the end, the figure had good reason to look supercilious.